NATIONAL MINORITIES. - All the uncertainties in which juridical speculation finds itself entangled with respect to the concept of nation are reflected in the concept of national minorities. Its principal nucleus, in fact, is expressed by the adjective "national," since the noun indicates only the extrinsic relation in which the group stands with respect to the political organism within whose bosom it carries on its own life. Assuming, with regard to the essence of the nation, what is set out under the relevant entry, a national minority can be defined as a natural social formation, held together by an internal bond of a spiritual order, composed of individuals homogeneous in origin and culture, who live in a relation of subjection toward a political organism of different origin and culture, from whose majority they differ.
This definition adheres to a unitary conception of the national minority, considered as a social entity provided with its own being and its own natural end, distinct from the more general end of the State. Opinions on this matter are not in agreement. Contemporary publicist writing and international law remain firmly anchored to the atomistic concept, which exercised its influence in the creation of the minority regime, with the treaties imposed on the States that were constituted at the end of the First World War, or saw their sovereignty extended over other territories. As appears from the articles of the Polish treaty, subsequently repeated in substance in all the others, the object of the stipulation is not the ethnic group in itself, but the inhabitants of the State of different origin, language and religion. This attitude was adopted because of clearly discernible ideological motives. The principle that the builders of the European settlement wished to apply for the solution of the minority problem was that of self-determination, or the free disposal of peoples, upheld by Wilson, of liberal origin and resting on an atomistic conception of society.
Catholic speculation has for some time been orienting itself differently. The opinion of Cathrein must by now be considered superseded — he, in order better to combat the principle of nationality, denied to the nation any real unity, regarding it as merely a logical unity — as must the intermediate position of Meyer, who, although intuiting that rights cannot be attributed to nationality unless it is considered as a collective entity, continued to conceive of them as rights of individuals, losing sight of the group. The unitary conception has gained ground among modern writers. Among them, in the development of the principle, Delos remains somewhat uncertain: his point of departure is undoubtedly a unitary concept of the national minority, which he considers as a natural social entity provided with its own end, while his point of arrival departs from it, since he positively excludes the moral personality to which rights must or can be attributed. An elementary reflection will suffice to demonstrate the necessity of abandoning the atomistic conception.
The existence of a unitary social entity requires three elements: a plurality of rational subjects, a common end toward which the conscious collaboration of the members is directed, and an internal informing principle that links the parts to one another, giving rise to a group individually constituted as a moral subject standing on its own. Now these three elements, necessary and sufficient for the existence of a unitary social aggregate, are present in the national minority. It is in fact constituted by a sum of individuals marked by certain homogeneous particular notes, who tend toward the preservation and development of their cultural peculiarities, and for that very reason feel themselves united to a single destiny. The national minority, therefore, must be conceived as a unitary entity, with its own positive social being, its own natural end, its own moral personality.
With this conclusion, recently reached by Catholic writers, there is connected the still-disputed question whether the national minority must be recognized, in addition to moral personality, also as having juridical personality, as a social entity standing on its own. In the doctrine dominated by the principles of the positivist school the solution is clearly negative. Proceeding, in fact, from the undemonstrated axiom that the source of personality is the positive juridical order, and finding that in no treaty and in no norm has the requisite conferral been made upon national minorities, it logically concludes for the exclusion of their juridical personality. It must be recognized that, if the problem is posed in terms of positive law, its solution cannot be other than that accepted by the common doctrine: the picture, however, changes if it is regarded in terms of natural law.
Some difficulty for the recognition of the juridical personality of the national minority arises from the state of dispersion of certain ethnic groups among populations of different nationality, since, in this case, the territorial union being lacking, the unitary concept can be applied less perfectly. And yet, if a spiritual bond exists among the members thus dispersed, the existence of a certain unity cannot be excluded, which allows the difficulty to be overcome. Others derive from the requirement of internal unity for the life of the State and from the wholly modern concept of sovereignty, conceived as absolute and discretionary power. Some of these difficulties undoubtedly carry weight, but they do not succeed in invalidating the natural juridical personality of the national minority. If the latter possesses its own social being, an effect of the convergences of will toward the attainment of a common end in favor of the human person, it is configured as a well-individuated subject, and as such it possesses, together with moral personality, also juridical personality, since subjective right always and invariably accompanies the person. A person without rights is a contradiction in terms. Wherever there is a physical or moral person, there also exists a holder of rights, independently of any positive juridical order.
Once the concept of the national minority has been established, it is now necessary to fix the rights that belong to it. With regard to these, a distinction has been drawn between human rights and rights more particularly proper to nationality, called cultural rights. The distinction can be accepted and maintained. If one examines, in fact, the series of rights by now recognized by the juridical conscience of peoples, it will be easy to see how they can be divided into two groups: rights common to all men, prescinding from their belonging to a given national minority, such as security of life, civil and political equality, personal and religious liberty, and rights specific to nationality, such as those that concern the preservation and development of one's own culture. This latter group merits particular mention.
A first right concerns the existence and integrity of the minority group, generally not considered because of the already-mentioned atomistic conception of the national minority, but fundamental as the juridical protection of a good, to whose preservation every social aggregate above all tends. Connected with the original faculty of being is that which refers to the soil, where the national minority has placed its stable seat, whence it draws the means of subsistence and with which it remains united almost organically. The national minority too has a homeland, loved and venerated with ardor of feeling, in which it has the right to reside undisturbed, whence the injustice of the barbarous measure of the forced exchange of populations, in some cases adopted to solve the minority problem.
A separate body of rights, to which the appellation "cultural" more properly belongs, concerns the specific prerogatives that mark the national aggregate. Among these, mention should be made of the right to use one's own language and to have it taught in schools, to maintain one's own traditions and customs, and to the means necessary to preserve, develop and hand them down. This group of rights derives immediately for the national minority from its very being as a natural social aggregate, whose solidary union depends on the factors of nationality, which specify and contract the associative movement of universal tendency, and on the end toward which its collective action tends, directed to the perfecting of the human person.
From what precedes, the duties of the State toward the national minority, and of the latter toward the State, can easily be deduced. The State has the duty to ensure the existence of the ethnic group as such, its peaceful residence on its native soil, the free use of its language, and all the other cultural rights proper to its nationality. It is not forbidden, however, a prudent and circumspect assimilative action, provided that it is carried out with respect for the rights named above. The national minority, in turn, as part of the entire political organization, remains subject to all the duties that derive from legal justice. It has the obligation to cooperate for the common good, of total loyalty and submission toward the legitimate authority, of obedience to the laws that the latter enacts for the maintenance of social order and public prosperity. If the political power operates within the limits of justice, it is in no way lawful for the minority to plot against the State, to agitate or to rise up.
Only a fleeting mention must be added concerning the international protection of the rights of national minorities and the attitude of the Church toward them. The development of international protection has been slow. A first uncertain dawn came with the capitulations obtained by Francis I in 1535 from the Sublime Porte. A still hesitant step was taken with the Peace of Westphalia and the treaties stipulated after it, in which the persecutory principle cuius regio eius religio was replaced by that of a certain tolerance in favor of subjects who professed a religion different from that of the sovereign. The so-called interventions of humanity, against the tyranny exercised by the Ottoman Empire, particularly over the Balkan populations, in Lebanon and in Syria, supported, after the Congress of Paris of 1856, by the so-called European concert, reconsecrate a principle that gradually becomes ever more evident to the conscience of peoples. With the Treaty of Berlin of 1878, a true protective code of national minorities becomes part of contractual international law. In their defense, clauses were imposed on Montenegro, Serbia and Romania, liberated from the Turkish yoke, and on Turkey itself, in which equality in civil and political rights, in admission to public offices and in the exercise of professions was assured to all citizens, without distinction of race or religion; as well as freedom and the external practice of worship, of the hierarchical organization of the various religious communities and of their relations with their spiritual heads.
International protection of national minorities obtained a better organization, after the First World War, with the creation of an appropriate tutelary regime. As has been mentioned, the victorious powers imposed on Poland and on certain other States protective clauses, in which the following rights were included: to life and liberty; to the free profession of religion and to the exercise of public and private worship, with the connected faculty of erecting, maintaining and controlling charitable, religious and cultural institutions; to perfect political and civil equality, to the use of the national language and, in some cases, to imparting primary education in it. This contractual protection assumed the form of a true international tutelage of national minorities, insofar as the clauses concerning them were placed under the aegis of the League of Nations, which reserved for itself the right of supervision and intervention, in order to ensure their observance, forbidding the State to make any unilateral modification to them. The tutelary regime thus constituted was not free from defects, which rendered it in practice inoperative, and yet it marked an important stage in the progress of juridical institutions in favor of the human person. After the Second World War it was not revived. International law is now orienting itself toward a collective convention on the protection of human rights, of which a declaration has been made within the United Nations Organization (v. DIRITTI UMANI).
The attitude of the Church toward differences of stock, language, customs and culture has always been one of understanding, appreciation and, as far as possible, protection. "The Church," writes Pius XII in Summi pontificatus, "most faithful depositary of the divine educating wisdom, cannot think, nor does it think, of impairing or disdaining the particular characteristics that each people guards with jealous and understandable pride and considers as a precious patrimony." Without delving into the history of its civilizing action, conducted with the greatest respect for the customs of peoples when these were compatible with the principles of the revealed faith, it will suffice to recall how in the concordats stipulated in the most recent period it took care to protect the use of the language of the various nationalities together with freedom of worship. The Concordat with Poland of 1915, that with Lithuania of 1927 and with Germany of 1933 bear witness to this vigilant protection on the part of the Church.
The last popes, moreover, have risen in defense of the rights of national minorities. Benedict XV, in 1917, advised the belligerent powers to take into consideration, as far as possible, the just aspirations of peoples, in order to coordinate particular interests with the universal good of human society. On the occasion of the Second World War, Pius XII did not fail to point out the necessity of taking account of the true needs of nations and of providing for respect and protection of national minorities, for the constitution of an order founded on morality and justice. In the Christmas allocution of Dec. 1939 he affirmed: "In particular, one point that should attract attention, if a better ordering of Europe is desired, concerns the true needs and just demands of nations, as well as of national minorities." More expressly and at greater length in the Christmas message of 1941, where he condemns the oppression of minority nuclei, declaring that "in the field of a new order founded on moral principles, there is no place for the open or insidious oppression of the cultural and linguistic peculiarities of national minorities, for the impediment and contraction of their economic capacities, for the limitation and abolition of their natural fecundity."